(Born 1929)
Parents: John Abraham Foddrill and Eulah Myrtle Carpenter (“Dute”) Foddrill
Siblings: John Stephen Foddrill
Husband: Robert Dean Jackson (“Bob” or “Jeep”), married June 8, 1951
Children: Scott, Susan Hay, and Jacob (“Jake”)
(Continued from Part I)
What was “your decade…” the decade where you had the most fun, the one that you most associate yourself with, maybe in high school or college? Fun music and fun styles? Would it be the 40’s or the 50’s?
Well, I was in maternity clothes in the fifties. Basically…’53, ’55, and ’58. (Laughs…) But my husband and I loved to dance, and we did the swing, the jitterbug, you know, all that. He was really good with me because I’m not the most agile and graceful one; I was better then than I am now. Because of polio, there were some limitations I had, but he was wonderful with me. He would accommodate my flaws… so we danced millions of miles all through college until a year before he died, really. We were still dancing and loved it. We didn’t slow dance, too, though, because he was kind of tall and I was kind of short (giggles), but we did love to do the swing. I think those are really some of my happiest memories of that sort of thing. We would go to jazz festival because we liked Dixieland jazz and things like that, so we did have good times.
In high school (I was telling you about this), Stardust was the name of the sort of roadhouse place we went (that my mother and dad checked out before I was allowed to go). We danced a lot there, and the boys from Bedford were really good dancers. The boys from Mitchell kind of (gestures with her hands)… Stiff? Like a pump handle. (Laughs…)
And clothing? You know, my mother made a lot of my clothes. When I was a little girl, she made all my dresses, and I have a quilt made out of all of the scraps from the clothes that she made. There’s even a patch of the dress I had on the morning that Henny Penny flogged me. I never did wear that dress again.
What was your husband’s name?
Bob. Robert Dean Jackson. He was really called Jeep. I met him as Jeep, like the car… Jeep, and he got the nickname because a man in their town always gave everyone a nickname if possible. He thought that Bob looked like that little animal on Popeye, I think. On the Popeye cartoon, there was a little animal called the Jeep. After that, Bob got out of graduate school, and we moved to Chicago where he had a job. And he said, “You know, I think you’d better start calling me Bob.” (Laughs…)
What do you remember about your wedding day? Was it really happy?
Oh yeah, it was just wonderful. It was a pretty day and very easy. I had just done my final exams; in fact, we were married on a Friday because I had to graduate on Sunday, and you had to be at graduation, or you didn’t get your diploma… unless you were on your deathbed or something. So we got married on Friday, which worked out beautifully because my sorority sisters and his fraternity brothers were all just 60 miles away, and they came to Mitchell for a wedding—the ones who could or wanted to—so that was nice to have them.
We had the reception at my house—at Mother and Dad’s house—and it was very low-key. It was not like weddings today; they just blow my mind. Sometimes I think it’s distracting from the actual couple. That’s right, and they forget what they’re doing and what they’re saying… what it’s all about. Well, it was a magical day, and he was a nice man. Did your mother make your dress? No, she did not. We did go to Indianapolis—the big city—and had a lot of fun picking out a dress. I think I only tried on one wedding dress. Do you ever watch Say Yes to the Dress? Mm-hmm. I watch it; it’s crazy sometimes.
So what did it look like—the dress?
It was lace, white (I wore it in an all-white wedding), had long sleeves. I probably have pictures someplace. It had a sweetheart neckline, had a pretty good train—not real long—and I wore a hoop skirt. You know, everything was full skirt—all of our formals. We always had voluminous skirts. That was such a pretty era. Yeah, I’ve always been jealous of that; I’ve always wanted to wear a hoop skirt sometime. Yeah, of course when you sit down (motions with her hands how it swoops up). (Laughs…)
The aisle in our church was pretty narrow, so Dad and I had to kind of work that out. And the veil had a cloche hat, which was kind of like a little Dutch girl hat. I was really into cloche hats. My bridesmaids wore them, and I know they just nearly had a hissy fit. But I thought they were wonderful! And then they had a veil over it. It sounds gorgeous! I think I’ve seen pictures of similar styles.
It was pretty, and they were all in white; everything was white. I liked it. It was June. My bouquet was Lily of the Valley with an orchid in the middle. It was a nice day.
Then, we went to another state park; it was close to DePauw. We stayed Friday night and Saturday night. It was pretty rustic (I think that’s the best word for it). (Laughs…)
Then, we were at school on Sunday for my graduation. Then, Bob graduated from graduate school. He went to Northwestern for his M.B.A. and went to the downtown campus in Chicago and had a job. So we moved (hear this)—two little small-town kids moved to Chicago, and it. was. a. ball. We were there for about two years and loved it. It was so much fun. You know, no fears and all; we were just so young… but poor as church mice. We found a lot of free things to do and were pretty frugal about the things [we] had to pay for. But it was fun.
So what did he [your husband] study?
He was economics; he got his M.B.A., which is Masters of Business Administration. He had several different jobs, and he taught some. He loved teaching.
You said you had a daughter, right? What other children did you have?
Ok, Scott is our oldest, and he’s an attorney in Dallas, Texas. And then Susan is our daughter in Tampa… Susan Hay, and she’s divorced and has a daughter who is thirty who is married and wanting to start a family. Then, Jake—Jacob Jackson—lives here. He’s my baby.
So what was it like to raise children? Were there lots of challenges?
Yeah, you know, ask your mom! We have three good children. Everybody has their glitches. I don’t care what you think about it; your child is not perfect. When you get to be a mom, you’re going to think, “This is the perfect child on Earth.” No way. (Laughs…) You can approach perfection. You know, it keeps you on your toes.
We had a very quiet house. The kids would come home from a friend’s house, and they would say, “I don’t want to go back to Ron’s house; they are so noisy.” For some reason—it wasn’t something that we made them do—it was just quiet.
All of our kids went to private schools [in college], which was OK, and that was our deal. We told them, “You don’t have to work, you know. Do your due, and we’re on it to pay for it, but maybe when you get older, you’ll have to take care of us.” (Laughs…) Bob would not let our kids do scholarships. He said, “Let somebody that really needs to be helped [be helped].” And we worked like dogs to put the kids through college. They didn’t have any debt at all.
They were really good kids. They were all good students. Seth graduated from Duke and then Southern Methodist University Law School. Susan graduated from Rollins College. Jake graduated from DePauw University and Texas Christian Graduate School.
Was there anything that happened for your family with the hippie movement, Vietnam War, or other world events?
Well, the long hair—Susan would iron her hair, and I don’t know why she ironed it because it was straight as a string anyway. I don’t mean a curling iron; I mean an iron-iron on an ironing board to straighten it. And very long [hair], blue jeans; they went barefoot a lot. It was a disgusting time! (Laughs…) It’s like now—if you have a hangnail, it hurts; so what? It’s not terminal. Well, when the kids were going barefooted and growing their hair long and all of that, it wasn’t terminal. This too would pass… and you just had to keep telling yourself that. Bob Jackson would say, “Well, I see your barber died…” (Laughs…)
Jake had wavy hair—just absolutely gorgeous, and it still is. It got down to his shoulders, and we said, “Ok, as long as you keep it clean. Don’t let it get snaky dirty” And he was good… our water bill went up… (Laughs…)
And then Scott had a hair helmet. His hair was sticky straight and blond, and it was just like a helmet. He was old enough that it was just to here (shows us with her hands a short hair length). When the Beatles came to the United States, it was like, “Gah, look at that hair!”
What about all those new ideas in the 70’s? And women’s rights, things like that?
I wasn’t really a whole lot into that. I had a husband who gave me a lot of room, and he respected women. He’d make little snide remarks just to be funny, but usually to other people, not to me. He knew that I had my place. I didn’t feel like I was chained to the stove. I loved being chained to the stove. I loved being home when the kids were growing up and being a full-time mother. I was a volunteer. I did a lot of that, but you were home when the kids got off the bus. I would have died without that because when your husband comes home with what happened during the day and you’ve been doing laundry, changing diapers, ironing, dusting (chuckles), it can get kind of tricky and edgy, so you know, volunteering is what I liked to do. That was fun.
About dressing, I will tell you this. In the 40’s and 50’s when you traveled, you always wore white gloves and a hat. You could not get on an airplane in your house clothes or your pajama bottoms. You looked darn good. In fact, I belonged to several different clubs in Indianapolis, and we’d go to meetings in members’ homes. We wore hats and gloves to those meetings for several years. Then, the hats kind of went away… Hats were wonderful because it you were having a bad hair day [you could put one on]. That’s a good point!
Was all this while you were in Chicago still when you were raising your children and all of that?
No, in fact, I got pregnant. We’d been married a year and a half, and we lived in a small apartment building kind of on Lake Michigan. In fact, we were the only Gentile people; everybody else was Jewish, which was wonderful. It was a great eye-opener, and we made great friends. We had what we called a “bed-standing room.” We did not have a bedroom; you opened the door, and it was a closet. It had a morphing type bedroom you spun around, and it became a living room. It was not a place to raise a baby—a little hallway, one bath, an eating area. The kitchen was about as big as that table (shows us a pretty good-sized table). But it was fine for us—but then I did work. I did start working in Chicago.
We had wonderful neighbors upstairs; he was a hat maker—of course very Jewish. I fried bacon, and Babs Saltsman would come down banging on my door. She’d say, “What are you making, Jill?” (Laughs…) I’d say, “Well, Babs, I’m frying bacon,” and she’d say, “Oh, it smells so good.” Oh, because it’s not Kosher, right? And she’d say, “Can I taste it?” and I said, “Well, you know that it’s pork…” She said, “I don’t care.” (Laughs…) Then, they had a little girl, and they named her Jill! Aaaww… Which was kind of nice…
I think maybe they had two children. They’re apartment was exactly like ours, and we started talking about wanting to live in a house. Of course, this was so strange to their whole family because they had all, for generations, lived in apartments. They had lived in big cities, and low and behold, we left and came to Indianapolis. Babs and Al bought a house out in the suburbs and moved into a house! Were they near you? No, no. This was in Chicago; they were in Chicago. Yeah, and I often wonder what happened to his business because you know, hat making went down the tubes—hat wearing and hat making. But we did keep in touch for a while; then, I kind of lost track of her.
Have you done much traveling in your life?
Mm-hmm. We did a lot of traveling. When the kids were small—they were younger—my family got into scuba diving, and I didn’t. I’m claustrophobic. Put that mask on me, and my eyes get like this (shows us a wide-eyed expression). So I would snorkel a little bit, but mostly, I sat on the beach and read dirty books. (Laughs…) That sounds like fun, too! I went diving vicariously because they would all come back with their stories. They loved diving, so we went to a lot of islands in the Caribbean. Those were wonderful vacations!
In fact, Bob found the Cayman Islands in the early 70’s, and no one had ever heard of it. I think he saw it in a magazine or something. We went to Cayman, and the streets were sand; it was a good diving place. We went to Cayman several times, and of course, it’s so popular now.
Then, we went to Mexico; we loved Mexico… when it was still safe and with the sweetest people. We had nice vacations. We went to Acapulco where you would now probably be killed. We went with another couple of friends with their four children and our three children and stayed in the house that Jackie and Jack Kennedy had honeymooned in. It was kind of nice, kind of a nice house! We had a cook and a housekeeper and a laundress and a gardener. Wow! What a wonderful vacation! Oh, it was superb, fun!
Bob and I belonged to an investment club, and the club did very well. So, we decided as a group—there were 8 couples—that we would travel. We started going cruising, and we started out on Renaissance (was the name of the company). The first ships held 114 passengers, which was a wonderful size—very intimate. And you didn’t have to dress up; they didn’t have formal nights and all that sort of thing. It was more casual. Then, they expanded, and their ships got to be about 600 passengers, but we went a lot of places on those. We went to Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, everywhere. Our first cruise was to Turkey. We started out in Istanbul, and we would fly to Europe and get on a ship there. Then, we did the Greek Islands, which was wonderful, and St. Petersburg, Russia, France.
In fact, we had just sailed from France on 9-11. On this cruise ship, they had just a tiny television set, and CNN, I think, was the only channel we could get. The gals were playing a game, and the men were probably playing gin. One of our gals went to the bathroom, came back, and said, “Some lady is in there just crying her eyes out.” Well, then, another gal from our group had been watching it and said, “Something terrible has happened. A plane has flown into some building in New York.” Well, then, we started… And you felt totally out of control; it was the most desperate feeling to be that far from home. And having to fly back, right? Well, we were at the tail end of our trip, and I think we had one other port to make. Then, we were heading to Lisbon, Portugal; it was a disembark place.
Anyway, we had to disembark and get on an airplane. What happens a lot on Renaissance is that they would charter planes, so we were not on a big-time airliner after 9-11. So we had to go through security. This was the first time those poor people had ever done it. They had on rubber gloves, and they had used them so much that their fingers had gone through their rubber gloves. It took us seven hours to clear security, and they looked at every dirty sock, every dirty blouse—they were completely thorough.
Bob called the kids; he never let me see that bill. He called them from the ship’s phone and told them not to get on any airplane. Of course, little did we know, they couldn’t have!
Then, we flew into New York City. Ok, 9-11 was on Tuesday. We flew into New York City on the Saturday following. We left the airport and found some horrible, horrible hotel, and I’m surprised we weren’t all killed. I was really claustrophobic and had to keep the windows open—what a pain—and I asked the lady behind the desk if the windows opened. (She wasn’t a lady; she was a woman!) (Laughs…) And she said, “Well, yes, but I don’t think you should open them,” which scared me to death. Well, we got through; it was filthy, nasty, dirty. I slept in my clothes, and I wanted to wash my shoes after they touched the carpet. It was awful. Bob set all of our luggage against the door, and we’d been hours without showers. I looked at the shower, and I thought, “Eh, I’d get dirty in there!”
We got back to Indianapolis on Sunday, which was absolutely wonderful. But in the New York airport, you could’ve shot a shotgun through LaGuardia, and you wouldn’t have hit one person. There was no one there. The only people that we saw were crews from airplanes. Anyway, that was an experience. We’ll never know what the experiences that you all had here [were like] because you all were so much more in on the know than we were. We were babes in the woods, really. I guess that was maybe… that was the last cruise we went on, but we had some really nice experiences.
Oh, for my seventieth birthday, the children gave me a trip—a cruise—to Alaska, and I could invite anybody I wanted. Were you supposed to pick between the kids? (Laughs…) No, no—Bob. It was Bob.
The ship was big—3,000 passengers, but it’s like a big university; you have your little community that you’re comfortable with. There were six or seven couples that we could’ve been a mother or father to all of them, but my husband was really young-acting, so… we got along fine with all ages.
Anyway, we met this couple from England on the cruise, so the next time (in fact, the time we sailed before 9-11), we met the couple; they came down to the ship; and we had one day in Dover, England. They brought their car down and took us—Bob wanted to go to a really, really old pub, and we did that.
One time, Bob and I rented a car and for a month drove all over England, Scotland, and Wales; that was fun… except getting out of London. We almost got a divorce! (Laughs…) Everybody had said, “Don’t drive in London.” Well, that is just needling Bob Jackson. “My God, I’ll drive in London!” Man oh man, I was screaming at him, he was screaming at me. Finally, he stopped. He just pulled the car over, and those great big tall cabs—you know, those English cabs—with the wonderful gentlemen in the black suits and the white shirts… One was behind the wheel, and Bob told him the name of our hotel. We had no idea—I think the street that we were on was about two blocks long and that was it. So he said, “Follow me,” and we followed the cab driver to the little, tiny hotel where we were staying.
I think we ended up; we did end up at one time or another being in all the states. We never went to Hawaii, had no desire. Well, of course, he had been in Hawaii when he was in the service, but that was a lot different.
So he was in the military, or marines, right?
He was a Marine, mm-hmm.
(To be continued in Part III . . . )
(Born 1920) 
Life Legacies 